Pale Queen's Courtyard

by Marcin Wrona

  Chapter 13: The Feast of Lamash

  Leonine’s heart sank when he saw the commotion. He stood in an unmoving queue behind a brutish-looking man with the muscles and sunburn of a menial, who cursed frequently and muttered to the next man about how he had not the time to wait.

  The gate guards were present, but admitted nobody. They spoke in heated tones with a band of armed newcomers wearing the city’s colours.

  Leonine’s heart rose into his throat as he watched. Had his description already been circulated by the guards he ran over during his desperate flight back to Uchu’s hut? What does it matter? He had little choice.

  He had considered taking the time to shave his beard and find new clothes, but time, even when measured in minutes, had become a luxury. He would have to trust in luck and his knife; it had already drunk deeply this day, but he would not hesitate to give it another feast.

  How much time does Ilasin have left?

  He had been too late once.

  “Do you know what’s happening up there?” he asked the man queued ahead of him.

  The worker turned to him, and raised his hands imploringly to the sky. “I asked the same of a farmer leaving the city, maybe ten minutes gone. He said there was a fight in the streets. Swords, spears, soldiers. Some band of Sarvashi was attacked, near as he could make it out.”

  Sarvashi? How many bands of Sarvashi could there be in Nerkut? Had someone attacked the Hunt that abducted Ilasin?

  “Of all the damnable luck,” Leonine said, shaking his head. The Crescent?

  “That’s what I said. If it were just some scuffle between dockhands, we’d be in the city by now, but Sarvashi? Oh, all of a sudden we need to wait all damn afternoon to get into our city.” The sunburned man spat on the ground. “Anki’s balls,” he added, turning away. “And tomorrow a festival day. If this lasts much longer, I won’t be able to find lodgings.”

  If the Hunt had truly been attacked in the street, there was little doubt in his mind that Ilasin was the cause. Did they still have her, or was she even now in yet another set of hands? This game has too many players. The uncertainty gnawed at him.

  Moments later, the guards newly arrived at the gate jogged away. The queue lurched forward once again. Leonine ensured that his knife was loose, expecting the worst, but caution proved unnecessary. He gave the name Sumgub, and entered the city.

  Some men said – usually with clucking tongues – that the further one went from the great salt marshes where the Shalumes and Hapur emptied into an endless sea, the more dangerous the cities became. Some blamed the pernicious Karhani savages. Others claimed the east was calmed by the influence of staid, stolid Sarvagadis.

  Nerkut was one of the eastern cities often used as evidence for this theory. Her wide streets were clean and bright, the water from her wells clean and bright, her merchants clean and bright. The city looked safe, orderly and prosperous, in a way that menacing Inatum and ramshackle Numush did not.

  But Leonine had lived in Sarvagadis, the city so many claimed with knowing nods to be the model of civility, where smiling guards held torches for women who fearlessly walked alone at night. How many times had he stumbled over the corpses of those guards, murdered for a handful of coin or in retribution for a jailed or executed friend? How many times had he seen what became of women who’d been caught walking the wrong street alone? Every city had its dark alleys. It was just a question of finding them...

  “Spare a coin?”

  … and in every city, the method was the same.

  There were few beggars in Nerkut, and most of them seemed well enough fed. This one sat against a wall, stick-thin legs splayed uselessly before him, beard and hair wild and grey. The arms that held out his begging bowl were traced with numerous scars, some thin white lines, others angry, ragged weals. A former soldier, or perhaps a thug, his back broken. It seemed as good a place to start as any.

  “I’ll not spare one, but you might earn two.”

  The beggar fixed Leonine with a suspicious eye.

  “Not sure I can do much for you,” he said, pointing to his legs.

  “It’s not your strength I’m after. I need information. Have you an ear to the ground?”

  The beggar looked him up and down appraisingly, then nodded.

  The method was always the same.

  “I see you’ve done this before,” said Leonine.

  The beggar nodded. “The coin,” he said simply. Leonine reached into his tunic and the pouch inside, producing a shekel that he tossed into the man’s wooden bowl, which was emptier than it should have been by this hour. Old tricks. He wondered absently how much a canny beggar could make in a city such as this one. Some of the better-informed street urchins in Sarvagadis earned more than tailors or bakers.

  “More if your information is worthwhile,” Leonine said.

  “It’s worth the coin. Might be you’ll end up like me if you take it, but if you’re paying…” another cough.

  Leonine looked around. The streets seemed empty enough, but only prophets, philosophers and criminals conversed at length with beggars, and none of those were much loved by guardsmen. Leonine pointed to a nearby alleyway between two immaculately white buildings. “In there.”

  The beggar sighed, and upended his bowl into the folds of his grimy tunic, the coins jingling merrily as they met their silver and copper brothers and sisters. He gripped the bowl itself in the few teeth that remained to him, and pulled himself into the alleyway with practiced spryness. Leonine followed, looking around at the street and nearby roofs to make sure they had not drawn too much attention. It seemed clear.

  “What’s your game?” the beggar asked. “Burglary? Fraud? Murder? You’re too pretty to be a street tough.”

  “Why, thank you,” Leonine said dryly, “but I’m not looking for work. Earlier today, a group of Sarvashi soldiers took a little girl captive. The word is that they were later attacked. I need to know who attacked them, but more than anything I need to know where the girl is.”

  The beggar thought a moment, then nodded.

  “What you say is true. The Sarvashi you describe are even now licking their wounds at Kutuanu’s temple. I do not know anything about a girl, but they were taken by surprise and definitely took the worst of it.”

  Justice of a sort, at least.

  “Who attacked them?” asked Leonine.

  “I haven’t a clue. Best bet is the Kardash Umamum. Thugs, but organized ones. They wear many boots, as they say – theft, assassination. Mean bastards, and behind most of this city’s ugliness. If they were not behind the attack, like as not, they’ll know who was. Of course, if they were, you may not want to ask.”

  “How do I contact them?”

  “More coin.”

  I don’t have time for this.

  “More coin, or I tell you nothing more. You won’t find anyone else as well informed.” The beggar folded his arms across his chest, a belligerent look in his eye. Under different circumstances, Leonine would have liked him.

  “Here,” he said, tossing the man two more shekels. “Get through the rest of my questions without interruption for more payment, and there’s ten more where these came from.”

  “Oh, well,” said the beggar in a singsong voice. “Aren’t we Abalash, the generous thief?”

  “No. Unlike Abalash, we’re perfectly happy to kill. Now, how do I meet them?”

  “There’s a small rat-hole of an inn down the Street of the Blessed Ox, with a sign of a woman pouring water. The street’s some ways west of here, near the gardens. If you can’t find it, ask for the way to the green bathhouse. The inn you’re looking for is a few doors down. Sit in the same place two nights in a row, and ask for koumiss. At the end of the second night, go to the bathhouse and ask for a private room. It’ll cost you.”

  Two nights?

  “How elaborate,” said Leonine. “Is there a password? A secret handshake, perhaps?”

  The man snorted. “I know, I know. But take them se
riously, or you’ll regret it. You need to negotiate well, and set up a smart coin drop. They get to thinking you’re some noble playing at intrigue, and they’ll slit you from belly to throat and take everything you’ve got.”

  Leonine nodded, and counted out the remaining coins he’d promised. “Thank you.”

  “Your coin is all the thanks I need. Try not to get yourself killed.”

  “Koumiss, please.”

  Leonine thought he saw a flash of contempt in the serving girl’s eyes, but it was gone as swiftly as it had appeared, replaced by a mask of bland pleasantry.

  “Will you have anything to eat?”

  Leonine’s stomach felt pinched. He had eaten nothing more than a skewer of too-dry lamb that day, when he could no longer ignore the screams of his hunger. He’d been busy talking to other beggars to corroborate the claims about this Kardash Umamum of which the first man had spoken, and to learn more of Ilasin. The first beggar had indeed been well informed. Most of the others he talked to knew nothing, and the few that did seemed nervous discussing the matter. Still, the instructions made no mention of food. They were silent on the absence of food as well, but who could tell with such dramatics?

  “No,” he replied. “Thank you. Just the milk.”

  Leonine wondered how much time this bloody exercise would require. He’d heard nothing of trials or executions, and if indeed the Hunt had been taken unaware, it was not altogether unlikely that Ilasin had been taken away. Still, this night and another? It was so long a time to spend sick with worry.

  “Your koumiss.”

  Leonine thanked the girl, and passed her a pair of copper coins. Satisfied, she walked off.

  It’s enough to order it, right? I don’t have to actually drink it, right?

  Leonine took a sip of the fermented milk, trying not to wince, while he contemplated how it could be that some – indeed, many – men drank the foul stuff willingly. Why could this idiotic ritual not have called for beer, or an apple wine from the north?

  Just drink the swill and go.

  The inn under the sign of a woman pouring water was not a place in which he would have enjoyed spending time. The common room was empty but for a pair of old men silently nursing cups of beer at a table near his own, and in the absence of people to watch, he’d found himself counting cobwebs and ceiling cracks in a vain attempt to distract himself from thoughts of Ilasin.

  Another sip, this one slightly more palatable. He might have to pass up Akushu-Ti’s caravan, worse luck – their agreed-upon departure loomed. Unless the capricious gods decided to turn everything his way, it would likely be impossible to find Ilasin so swiftly. Who could tell where she had been taken?

  Still, she was probably safe, and that was worth so much more than the caravan to Adarpa. This was Nerkut, her city, and the High Priest’s daughter was not Wardum. If the Hounds still had her, if she was still to be given to the Shimurg, she would almost certainly be the talk of the town.

  But who has her now, and what do they want with her?

  He raised the cup again, only to realize, to his surprise, that the koumiss had mercifully disappeared. He stood up and left, nodding to the old men, who looked at him impassively.

  The next afternoon found Leonine strolling close to enough to Kutuanu’s temple grounds to see the great tents that had been set up in the courtyard. A bandaged Sarvashi soldier wandered the grounds beside three men in the sumptuous robes of the temple’s own royal physicians. Of Ilasin there was no sign, but he no longer feared that the Hounds had taken her.

  What he wanted to do, while he awaited tonight’s meeting with the Kardash Umamum, was to gauge the strength of this Hunt. If Ilasin had been taken from them, it was only a matter of time until they tried to reclaim her. If their Hound still lived, drawing too near was foolish, but the number of healers walking the grounds implied heavy losses.

  Good.

  He turned away and began to walk in the direction of the inn. He would eat something first, this time; his stomach rumbled once more. Earlier that day, Akushu-Ti had treated him to a fine meal followed by Bachiyan tea, while Leonine lied about last-minute difficulties and asked him to delay the caravan’s departure. The merchant had not been happy at the change in plans, but a handful of coin had predictably mollified him.

  As he drew closer to his destination, he realized that the streets were busier by far than he had expected them to be. Men and women in brightly coloured clothing walked together from one merchant’s stall to the next, while their children pulled at tunics and begged for sweets.

  The festival. He remembered the complaints of the man outside the gates. But which festival? Leonine realized that he had entirely lost track of the date. The last month had passed in a blur. The Rain Days were still here, he guessed, but he could not say for how much longer.

  How long has it been since I stole the vase? Three weeks? A month? Longer?

  He debated posing a question to one of the revelers, but the pluck of a harp interrupted him. The crowds quieted, and the harpist bowed his head. He was a man in his middle age, seated with his back to a store wall, the instrument between his legs.

  As the musician played a few introductory chords, Leonine found his fingers itching. How longed to play! How he pined for the lost lyre with its false bottom, and the snake-harp he had bought in Numush at Ilasin’s urging. His fingers bent and flexed, picking from the air the same chords the harpist drew from his instrument.

  Leonine stopped suddenly, and the cold chains of memory drew tight around him. He had known the song, once. He knew it still, although he had never played it since that terrifying day when his powers first awoke. He watched the crowd sway, some with mouths open, chanting the same words as the harpist. The crowd in his memory had looked much like this one, until he had opened his eyes to fists and screams and bloodshed.

  The fourth day of the month of Mamut. The Feast of Lamash. Two hundred years ago this day, the warriors of Hatshut, under the banners of their Lugal Lamash, had temporarily halted the encroaching Artalum in a battle that the Ekkadi should never have won. Six years ago this day, he had sung of the legend, and lost Farshideh to the Hunt.

  And now, I’ve lost Ilasin.

  Leonine’s fingers still bent and flexed, but now he saw them through a film of tears. His shoulders shook, and he wept, as he always did on this hated, accursed day. He felt a small hand on his shoulder and turned, hoping against hope, that the gods had granted him a miracle, and saw instead a small boy with brown curls and concern in his brown eyes.

  “Why are you sad?” the child asked.

  Leonine shook his head and tried to smile. “I … am j-just overcome.”

  Ilasin, my light. I miss you so much.

  “Koumiss, please.”

  The common room had changed, it seemed. Last night’s impassive old men had been replaced by a different pair, similarly grey but livelier, who threw dice and bickered. A trio of mean-looking men – the Kardash Umamum? – sat across from them, heads bowed together, muttering something he probably did not want to hear.

  “Anything to eat?” The same girl.

  “No, thank you,” Leonine replied. This time, at least, he had come prepared, stomach full of beets, chickpeas, and succulent lamb spiced with mint and peppers so fierce that his tongue still burned. The milk would take some of the heat from it. At least some good things could be said of koumiss.

  A cup soon arrived, and he drained it, dropping a few coins on the table and standing up to leave. The tabletop had a weal in it, as though somebody had struck it hard with a knife. Leonine found himself wondering if a hand had been in the way.

  The cool night air of the last few weeks had turned drier, more oppressive, signaling the slow death of spring. The Feast of Lamash was often said to be the harbinger of summer. The oracles had announced a few more weeks of rain, a healthy planting and a healthy harvest to come, but people in the streets – and in the inn – muttered of drought and parched crops, as they had every othe
r spring in recent memory. Too many consecutive years of good weather made the Ekkadi nervous, and Leonine could not remember the last time Ekka had faced massive flooding or sun-scorched hunger.

  I, at least, will not dry up. It had been some time since he’d bathed in something other than a river. For that, at least, he could thank the pretentious thugs of the Kardash Umamum.

  The bathhouse he was to visit called itself the Jade Waterfall. The walls and floors were tiled with slabs of a slick greyish-green stone that was obviously not jade, but nevertheless prettily reflected the light of oil lamps hanging from the walls. The steam, growing ever thicker as he made his way inside, carried the scent of jasmine.

  A bald man that had the baby-cheeked look of a eunuch about him greeted Leonine effusively.

  “Hot bath, please. I would like a private room, with oils and a pretty girl.”

  The attendant’s smile widened when Leonine passed him the coin to pay for such a luxury, and waved him in. “This way, this way. Follow me!”

  The man led him into a room that seemed two or three times as large as it needed to be, a lonely-looking brass tub in its centre. The floor here was still green in the main, though now inlaid with diamond patterns of glossy white stone. Still, the emptiness made it seem almost austere.

  “A lady will be with you shortly,” said the attendant, clapping his hands. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

  Two bald teenagers scurried into the room carrying pails full of steaming water, which they poured into the tub. They bowed and left, only to be replaced by two more. Pair by pair, the water rose until Leonine judged it deep enough. He undressed, laying his clothes aside, and lowered himself gingerly into the hot water. He closed his eyes and sighed. It would take more than water to chase his worries away.

  “I see the water is pleasant,” said a female voice. He opened his eyes and looked to the doorway. The girl was indeed pretty, Karhani from the look of her, with slender cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and almond eyes. She wore only a diaphanous shift that clung to her curves in the steam. Those curves were not as prominent as he might have liked. Her muscles were a little harder than he would have expected of a bathhouse girl. My contact, no doubt. “It is, yes. Would be nicer with some fragrant oils or flower petals.”

  “As you wish,” she said with a smile, walking over to the wall near the entryway and sliding a panel open to reveal a number of crystal bottles. Her hand hovered briefly, then she nodded and selected one. “Will lavender please you?”

  “That sounds divine,” he replied. She swayed to the edge of the tub and arched over it, tossing her hair back with a twist of her neck. The shift fell from one shoulder – no doubt entirely accidentally – and she pushed it back up with a coy glance. Leonine almost rolled his eyes.

  The girl let a few drops of oil fall from the bottle into the water, and the scent of lavender slowly and sweetly infused the air. She put a stopper back into the bottle and laid it aside, then moved behind him. She began to knead his upper back and his shoulders, her hands occasionally, teasingly, making their way lower still. Her hands ran down his forearms, and then settled on his own, fingers running over his knuckles, his wrist, the back of his hand.

  “So…” he asked, “now that you’ve decided I’m a swordsman, when do we talk about the Kardash Umamum?”

  Her hands stiffened, and withdrew as swiftly as the lash of a whip.

  “Don’t bother. I’m not with the guard, I’m not here to make problems, and I’m perfectly aware that you’ve got a weapon on you somewhere. A garrote, perhaps? Or a spike hidden in your hair?”

  She exhaled slowly, then began to laugh. “Most men are too distracted to consider the possibility that I’m the Kardash front.”

  Leonine shrugged. “I am not most men. Why all this?” He gestured at the tub, the room around him.

  “Can’t you guess?” she said. “I’ve got you unarmed and naked, trapped comfortably in a bathtub in a private room. A perfect position from which to discuss affairs. Of course, I’m also supposed to have you off guard, but that seems not to be the case.”

  “No. Not especially.”

  “I don’t suppose you’re stupid enough to have carried enough coin here to pay for whatever it is you want?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Very well, then. Let’s talk about what it is you want of us.”

  Finally. He had no interest in banter. Not now. “I have neither the inclination nor the time to play games. I need information, and I have the means to pay for it. Yesterday, a girl sorceress was captured by a Sarvashi Hound, in a village outside the city gates. Then, as far as I can tell, that Hound’s party was attacked outside the market by somebody else. Your organization, in fact, unless I miss my guess. Now I need to know who you were working for, and where the girl is.”

  The woman crossed her arms over her breast and threw him a sardonic half-smile. She had the look of a cat regarding its terrified supper. But I am no mouse. “So, let’s say your accusation is true. You think that I will simply take you to our leaders, without the faintest idea of who you are and whom you represent, and have them turn on the people who hired us? You intend for us to betray people powerful enough to work against the Merezadesh templars?”

  “Yes,” answered Leonine simply.

  “Anki’s Chariot. Why in hell would we do such a thing?”

  “Because I have a purse full of minas, and your superiors will look favourably upon you when they have finished counting them. And they need never know how much of my money you kept for yourself.”

  “You are not a subtle man,” she said, tracing his jaw with her finger. “And not a smart one. What could possibly make you think that I’m interested in a bribe? Do you think the value of my life can be measured in money? One little word from me, and you’ll never leave this place alive.”

  More games. More games? Leonine slapped her hand away, and grabbed her by the throat. He realized in his anger that he’d opened himself to magic. Another mistake, but so be it. He was past caring. Gods, Ilasin has made you stupid.

  Leonine squeezed hard, and ignored the hands batting feebly at his wrist. He wove what power he had gathered into a simple glamour to amplify his voice.

  “Listen to me very carefully, you tiresome little bitch. I am angry, and I am desperate, and it’s making me edgy and stupid. I am also, as it happens, a sorcerer. Edgy, stupid sorcerers do edgy, stupid things, and I’m a hair’s breadth from killing you and everybody else here, and leaving this place in flames. I am willing to hand twenty minas over to you play-acting children because I’ve been somewhat reliably informed that you’re actually knowledgeable. We both know that’s far more money than this information is worth. I’m telling you this not because I’m piss-poor at bargaining, but to impress upon you exactly how serious I am.”

  She sputtered, eyes wide with what looked to be genuine fear, and Leonine released her.

  “Now, I will stand outside this bathhouse until your leaders come to meet me, and if I have time enough to grow bored I will come right back in and kill everybody in my path. Is that clear?”

  “Y-yes,” she said.

  Later that night, Leonine sat alone in a dingy room, weighing his options. The beggar was right – the Kardash Umamum had been behind the attack. If the fat man he’d spoken to outside the Jade Waterfall was to be trusted, his organization had been little more than hired muscle.

  If he’s to be trusted. The chances were good that the Kardash Umamum would send an assassin or two his way once their surprise faded. His claims of great sorcery would not stay their knives long; he was after all a witness to their betrayal of a client. Still, he had his information, and no intention of remaining in Nerkut.

  The fat man had told Leonine that a mysterious man with a slave-brand had hired them. One of Ibashtu’s, no doubt. That seals it. After the ambush, they had handed the girl over to their mysterious benefactor, and thought nothing more of it. Leonine had needed a few more less-than-subtle
threats, and several more minas, to wheedle from the fat man the final piece of information.

  The swamp. Of course. To the south, beyond the city walls, was the great swamp that had once been Alu-nin-hura. Where better for Ibashtu’s ilk to hide than the flooded bones of Nin’s great city?

  What do they want with Ila?

  Leonine was not sure that he really wanted to know, nor did he have any idea how he could possibly find a little girl in a great swamp.

  But the Hounds had led him to Ilasin once, so many weeks ago, in the broken corridors of ancient Lumshazzar. He was certain that they would find her trail, and he would once again snap at their heels.